Abu Hurayrah; Husayn ibn ʿAbd al-Rahman; Abu Husayn ʿUthman ibn ʿAsim; Humayd al-Tawil; al-Aʿmash; Hisham ibn Hassan; Mansur ibn al-Muʿtamir; Mughira ibn Miqsam; Mutarrif ibn Tarif; Yahya ibn Haniʾ al-Muradi; Dahtham ibn Qurran; Sufyan al-Tammar; Habib ibn Abi Thabit—one of his senior teachers—ʿAbd al-ʿAziz ibn Rufayʿ; Hisham ibn ʿUrwah; and many others besides them.
Hadith were narrated from him by: Ibn al-Mubarak, al-Kisāʾī, Wakiʿ, Abu Dawud, Ahmad ibn Hanbal, Muhammad ibn ʿAbd Allah ibn Numayr, Ishaq ibn Rahuyah, Abu Bakr ibn Abi Shaybah, Abu Kurayb, ʿAli ibn Muhammad al-Tanafisi, al-Hasan ibn ʿArafah, Abu Hisham al-Rifaʿi, Yahya al-Himmani, Hannad ibn al-Sari, and a host of others, the last of them to die being Ahmad ibn ʿAbd al-Jabbar al-ʿUtāridi.
A number of reciters presented their Qurʾan to him, among them: Abuʾl-Hasan al-Kisāʾī—who predeceased him—Yahya al-ʿUlami, Abu Yusuf al-Aʿsha, ʿAbd al-Hamid ibn Salih al-Burjumi, ʿUrwah ibn Muhammad al-Asadi, and ʿAbd al-Rahman ibn Abi Hammad.
Yahya ibn Adam learned the individual letters and their precise articulation from him with exacting verification.
Ahmad ibn Hanbal mentioned him, saying, “Trustworthy—though he may sometimes make mistakes—devoted to the Qurʾan and to all that is good.”
Abu Hatim said: I heard ʿAli ibn Salih al-Anmati say, “I heard Abu Bakr ibn ʿAyyash declare: ‘The Qurʾan is the speech of Allah; He conveyed it to Gabriel, and Gabriel conveyed it to Muhammad—peace and blessings be upon him. From Him it began, and to Him it shall return.’ ”
Ibn al-Mubarak remarked, “I have never seen anyone more eager to follow the Sunnah than Abu Bakr ibn ʿAyyash.”